2009 (substitute with year + 1 if it’s already that year), will be a year of Linux Desktop

There were even some years (mostly 2001-2003) when I claimed that now it’s really there. Then I got my first OS X powered iBook and stopped caring.

Imagine my surprise when they’ve told me that after years of development the mystical KDE4 is now ready for end user market and that everyone and their dog should try running it.

This of course requires a proper party!

Since we’re geeks, we can’t just drink beer and have a good time but we also have to learn something in the process, demo the whole thing and have much more good time before we start the drinking part.

With these words, I’d like to announce KDE4.2 release party in Kiberpipa, Ljubljana, Slovenia on 27th of January (that’s Tuesday, tommorow or today). The schedule is as following:

For a while now, I’ve been intrigued by a concept of social objects. The idea of social objects on Internet is that they’re objects around which conversation happens, they’re shared and interacted with. The most common example is Flickr, where they’ve turned images into something more by giving community ability to comment, tag, share, embed, group and otherwise interact with images. YouTube did the same for videos, while MySpace is king in music space.

Image by thinkjose via Flickr

But lets make thought experiment a bit harder. How would one introduce social objects into organization like Kiberpipa, with daily events and lots of different activities?

My current proposal would be to try and clone Facebook‘s news feed as they’ve successfully managed to turn actions like going to an event or just saying to someone on their Wall into a social object, that can be commented on or acted upon (also RSVP-ing to event, joining the group, etc).

Lots of social objects on Facebook

Lets explore this in a case of physical event space, like Kiberpipa. Right now mailing list sends me email that ends with a rather generic signature:

Please confirm your attendance to this event at the following address: http://www…

Upon visiting the site, you would get listing for event on different social networks and event management systems. Smart API mashup, would pull the participants from different networks that said that they will come and display them alongside the event listing on Kiberpipa page itself. This way RSVP-ing to the event, could become a social object, something that you check for your friends and nudge people to confirm if you don’t see them on the list.

Why bother? Getting people to actually visit your event in this time of loose focus is one of the hardest things to achieve. Building a tool that uses peer groups to push this information about event to them is highly efficient method of providing this information to target audience that will appreciate it most and by leveraging social context give them extra incentives to actually visit.

If you want to learn more about social objects, I would advise great blog post on gaping void as well as embedded presentation from Jaiku‘s Jyri Engestrom:

Zbigniew Braniecki – the power of communities; how to create communities, what does it mean to have a community and what does it mean to participate to communities.

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Why people do things

The do it because they want a reward in some way. There are different types of rewards:

external motivations (good grade, money, airline miles)

hobby

Driven by intristic motivation, practice for interst and enjoyment. Gives you skills, knowledge, experience. But the goal is a personal fulfillment.

Volutneering – highest level onÂ Maslow’sÂ hiarachy of motivation.Â

Mozilla communites are organic. They are organic and part of Mozilla project from the day 0. They contribute to each and every element of the system. Create new elements and serve as whistle-blowers. Contribute their unique skills and knowledge and are united by the goals of manifesto.

Firefox Flicks
The other example is Firefox Flicks, it’s a community made of clips that are promoting Firefox.

Example video clip:

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Development

With time, the development of Firefox/Mozilla code-base split 60% – of payed people vs. 40% of contributed code. Mozilla started hiring people, but the natural source of community, were former community members who just contributed to the level that made the project recognizable. Then they got hired to be able to spend even more time and effort in the project. This also means that Mozilla is representing American dream, if you enjoy what you do it is possible to get help to spend all of your time on the project you like and enjoy.

Mozilla is also doing Internships that are focused on “you” creating what you want, and focusing on things that you want to work on. It also means that organization is not employing people who are doing it just for money, but canÂ attractÂ great and passionate people. It also means that it can do more with a smaller team, and everyone is a community.

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Something bigger

Mozilla is not only about Firefox, it’s something much bigger. A lot of great other things are being developed, after getting Firefox 3 out of door, the idea is to work on Thunderbird, more localization.

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Thunderbird 3

The idea for next major version of Thunderbird, by Mozilla Messaging, connect social network, online identities and such.

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MobileÂ Solutions

Working on new ways to interact with mobiles, how to use internet and new interaction paradigms.

Yesterday Metropol opened another hi-tech art installation, this time from Robertina Å ebjaniÄ produced by DaÅ¡a Lakner for Kiberpipa Err0r group with title Pufination. The art piece is about pufies, 4 robots that communicate with each other and try to do everything to attract observers attention.

They blink, change color, wiggle, make sounds and are all together attention grabbing. Overall effect is very good with lots of visitors almost unable to walk away because of sudden emotional attachment.

Here is what artist wrote about her piece:

Pufis represent microorganisms living in an open ecosystem, while the collection of objects functions as a sensitive sensory network. The visitor is subsumed into the artificially produced Â»biosphereÂ« through active sensor-based interaction. Pufination is incomplete without interaction. There’s no leading role, we’re all just cohabiting. The project thus highlights our relationship to other life as an important factor to every individual’s own survival. In Pufination, we find ourselves inside a simulated projection of our everyday. Decentralised control, close stimulus response and adherence to simple rules â€“ this is what links robots and visitors in the Pufination.

Pufi robots are based on the Arduino platform. They communicate with each other by a wireless network and with people by touch, sound, light and vibration.